Percy Bysshe Shelley (pronounced BISH; August 4, 1792–July 8, 1822) was an English writer and one of the most important poets of the Romantic period. He held strong opinions about politics and society, which were reflected in his writing. Although he was not famous during his lifetime, his poetry gained more recognition after he died. Shelley influenced many later poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom called Shelley "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and one of the most advanced skeptical thinkers ever to write a poem."

Shelley’s reputation changed over the 20th century, but since the 1960s, his work has been widely praised for its vivid imagery, skill in different poetic styles, and the complex ideas about skepticism, idealism, and materialism in his writing. Some of his most famous poems include Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1816), Julian and Maddalo (1818–19), The Mask of Anarchy (1819, a political poem), Adonais (1821, a poem honoring John Keats), and The Triumph of Life (1822, his final unfinished work). Other well-known poems are "Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), and "To a Skylark" (1820). He also wrote verse dramas such as The Cenci (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Hellas (1822).

Shelley also wrote prose fiction and essays about political, social, and philosophical topics. Much of this work was not published during his lifetime or was published in a censored form because of the risk of legal trouble for criticizing politics or religion. Starting in the 1820s, his poetry and writings were read by people in political groups such as Owenists and Chartists, as well as by later thinkers like Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Bernard Shaw.

Shelley’s life was difficult, marked by family problems, poor health, and criticism for his atheism, political beliefs, and rejection of traditional social norms. In 1818, he moved to Italy, where he lived in self-exile for four years. During this time, he wrote some of the most important poetry of the Romantic period. His second wife, Mary Shelley, wrote the famous novel Frankenstein. Shelley died in a boating accident in 1822 at the age of 29.

Life

Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, in Field Place, Warnham, Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, the 2nd Baronet of Castle Goring, who was a member of Parliament for Horsham from 1790 to 1792 and for Shoreham from 1806 to 1812. His mother was Elizabeth Pilfold, the daughter of a successful butcher. Shelley had four younger sisters and one much younger brother. His early childhood was mostly happy and protected. He was very close to his sisters and mother, who taught him to hunt, fish, and ride. At age six, he went to a day school run by the vicar of Warnham church. There, he showed a strong memory and talent for learning languages.

In 1802, Shelley entered the Syon House Academy in Brentford, Middlesex, where his cousin Thomas Medwin was a student. At school, Shelley was bullied and unhappy. He sometimes reacted with anger. He also began having nightmares, hallucinations, and sleepwalking, which continued throughout his life. Shelley became interested in science, which helped him learn more about mystery, romance, and supernatural stories. During holidays at Field Place, his sisters were often scared by his experiments with gunpowder, acids, and electricity. At school, he once used gunpowder to blow up a wooden fence.

In 1804, Shelley entered Eton College, a time he later remembered with dislike. He was often bullied severely by classmates, who called the attacks "Shelley-baits." Some people believed his bullying was because he acted differently from others, refused to follow rules, and had violent outbursts. His unusual behavior and interest in science and the occult earned him the nickname "Mad Shelley." He continued studying the occult and science, and classmates described him giving electric shocks to teachers, blowing up a tree stump with gunpowder, and trying to raise spirits with rituals. Later, a teacher named James Lind encouraged Shelley’s interest in the occult and introduced him to books about liberal ideas. Shelley also became interested in the writings of Plato and studied philosophy on his own. By the time he left Eton, he was known as a talented student and an unusual person.

During his final term at Eton, Shelley wrote his first novel, Zastrozzi, and gained followers among his classmates. Before joining University College, Oxford, in October 1810, Shelley completed Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (written with his sister Elizabeth), the verse drama The Wandering Jew, and the gothic novel St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (published in 1811).

At Oxford, Shelley attended few lectures and spent much time reading and doing science experiments in his room. He met a student named Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who became his closest friend. Under Hogg’s influence, Shelley became more interested in politics and held strong views against Christianity. These ideas were risky during Britain’s war with France, and Shelley’s father warned him about Hogg’s influence.

In the winter of 1810–1811, Shelley published several anonymous political poems and essays, including Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, The Necessity of Atheism (written with Hogg), and A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. He sent The Necessity of Atheism to all the bishops and college leaders at Oxford. When asked about authorship, he refused to answer, leading to his expulsion from Oxford on March 25, 1811, along with Hogg. Shelley’s father threatened to stop supporting him unless he returned home to study with tutors. Shelley refused, causing a conflict with his father.

In late December 1810, Shelley met Harriet Westbrook, a student at the same boarding school as his sisters. They wrote letters to each other that winter and after Shelley was expelled. He shared his ideas about politics, religion, and marriage with Harriet, and they agreed that she was unhappy at school and with her father. Shelley’s feelings for Harriet grew after his expulsion, when he was struggling emotionally due to family conflicts, the end of a romance with his cousin Harriet Grove, and fears of having a serious illness. Harriet’s older sister, Eliza, encouraged their relationship. Shelley’s letters to Harriet became more frequent in July 1811, and he returned to London in August to help her. Despite his beliefs about marriage, he left with 16-year-old Harriet for Edinburgh, Scotland, and they married on August 28, 1811.

When Shelley’s father learned of the marriage, he stopped giving him money, believing Shelley had married someone of lower social standing. Harriet’s father also stopped supporting them. Without money, Shelley

Political, religious and ethical views

Shelley was a political radical who was influenced by thinkers such as Rousseau, Paine, Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Leigh Hunt. He supported Catholic emancipation, republicanism, parliamentary reform, expanding voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, ending aristocratic and religious privileges, and creating a fairer distribution of wealth. His published works often expressed more moderate views than his private beliefs because of the risk of being punished for illegal speech and his desire to avoid upsetting friends and allies. Despite this, his political writings and activism led the government to monitor him at times.

Shelley’s most influential political work after his death was the poem Queen Mab, which included detailed notes on political themes. The work was published in 14 official and pirated editions by 1845 and became popular among Owenist and Chartist groups. His longest political essay, A Philosophical View of Reform, was written in 1820 but not published until 1920.

Shelley’s support for nonviolent resistance was based on his thoughts about the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rise. He believed that violent protest could lead to a military dictatorship. Though he supported Irish independence, he did not favor violent rebellion. In his 1812 pamphlet An Address to the Irish People, he wrote: "I do not wish to see things changed now, because it cannot be done without violence, and we may assure ourselves that none of us are fit for any change, however good, if we condescend to employ force in a cause we think right."

In his later essay A Philosophical View of Reform, Shelley acknowledged that force might be justified in certain political situations: "The last resort of resistance is undoubtedly insurrection. The right of insurrection is derived from the employment of armed force to counteract the will of the nation." He supported the 1820 armed rebellion in Spain against absolute monarchy and the 1821 Greek uprising against Ottoman rule.

Shelley’s poem The Mask of Anarchy (written in 1819, first published in 1832) is considered "perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance." Gandhi was familiar with the poem, and it is possible Shelley indirectly influenced Gandhi through Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience.

Shelley was an atheist who was influenced by materialist ideas in Holbach’s Le Système de la nature. His atheism was central to his political views because he saw religion as linked to social oppression. The atheism in his works risked legal action for religious libel. His early pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism was removed from sale after a priest complained. His poem Queen Mab, which criticized religion, was prosecuted twice by the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1821. Other works were edited before publication to avoid legal trouble.

Shelley’s support for free love was influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. In his notes to Queen Mab, he wrote: "A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage." He argued that unhappy marriages harmed children and that the idea of chastity outside marriage was "a monkish and evangelical superstition" that led to hypocrisy. He believed that love should be free and last only as long as mutual affection, not based on jealousy or fear. He claimed free love would not cause promiscuity or harm relationships, arguing that love-based relationships would be long-lasting and kind.

When Shelley’s friend T. J. Hogg made an unwanted sexual advance to Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, Shelley forgave Hogg and said he was not jealous. It is likely Shelley encouraged Hogg and Shelley’s second wife, Mary, to have a sexual relationship.

Shelley adopted a vegetarian diet in early March 1812 and followed it for the rest of his life, with occasional exceptions. His vegetarianism was influenced by ancient writers like Hesiod, Pythagoras, and Plato, as well as John Frank Newton’s The Return to Nature. Shelley wrote two essays on vegetarianism: A Vindication of Natural Diet (1813) and "On the Vegetable System of Diet" (written around 1813–1815, first published in 1929). Michael Owen Jones noted that Shelley’s vegetarianism emphasized health, reducing animal suffering, the inefficient use of land in animal farming, and economic inequality from animal food production. Shelley’s life and works inspired the founding of the Vegetarian Society in England in 1847 and directly influenced George Bernard Shaw’s vegetarianism.

Reception and influence

During his lifetime, most people did not read Shelley's work except for a small group of friends, poets, and critics. His books were printed in small numbers, usually 250 copies, and did not sell well. Only The Cenci was published again while Shelley was alive, unlike Byron's The Corsair (1814), which sold out its first print run of 10,000 copies in one day.

Most mainstream newspapers and magazines, except for the liberal Examiner, gave Shelley's work negative reviews. Critics often criticized his personal life, political views, and religious beliefs, even when they acknowledged that his poetry included beautiful images and poetic language. Some reviewers also said Shelley's writing was hard to understand, with one critic, Hazlitt, calling it "a passionate dream, a straining after impossibilities, a record of fond conjectures, a confused embodying of vague abstraction."

Over time, Shelley's poetry became popular among people who supported social and political change, such as Owenists and Chartists, who read Queen Mab. His work Revolt of Islam influenced poets who cared about workers' rights, including Thomas Hood, Thomas Cooper, and William Morris.

Shelley's work gained more attention in the mainstream after he died. In the 1820s and 1830s, Mary Shelley edited his poems to focus on his poetic skills and reduce the emphasis on his radical ideas. Matthew Arnold later described Shelley as a "beautiful and ineffectual angel."

Shelley influenced many important poets in the following decades, including Robert Browning, Algernon Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and William Butler Yeats. Characters similar to Shelley appeared in 19th-century books, such as Scythrop in Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey, Ladislaw in George Eliot's Middlemarch, and Angel Clare in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

In the 20th century, critics like Eliot, Leavis, Allen Tate, and Auden pointed out weaknesses in Shelley's style, ideas, and maturity. However, Shelley's reputation improved in the 1960s when new critics highlighted his influence from writers like Spenser and Milton, his skill with different types of poetry, and the complex mix of ideas in his work. American critic Harold Bloom called Shelley "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Donald H. Reiman noted that Shelley belongs to the same great tradition of Western writers as Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton.

Legacy

At the time of Shelley's death, many of his works remained unfinished, unpublished, or published in versions that had been edited to remove certain parts and contained many mistakes. Since the 1980s, several projects have worked to create accurate versions of his manuscripts and writings. Some important projects include:

• Reiman, D. H. (general editor), The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts (23 volumes), published in New York from 1986 to 2002
• Reiman, D. H. (general editor), The Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics: Shelley (9 volumes, 1985–1997)
• Reiman, D. H., and Fraistat, N. (et al.), The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley (3 volumes), 1999–2012, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore
• Cameron, K. N., and Reiman, D. H. (editors), Shelley and his Circle 1773–1822 (8 volumes), published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1961 onward
• Everest, K., Matthews, G., et al. (editors), The Poems of Shelley, 1804–1821 (4 volumes), published by Longman from 1989 to 2014
• Murray, E. B. (editor), The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 1 (1811–1818), published by Oxford University Press in 1995

Shelley’s long-lost work, Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things (1811), was found in 2006 and later made available online by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Charles E. Robinson has suggested that Shelley played an important role in writing Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and should be considered a co-author. Others, such as Charlotte Gordon, have disagreed with this idea. Fiona Sampson has stated: "In recent years, Percy’s corrections, visible in the Frankenstein notebooks at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, have been used as evidence that he must have co-written the novel. However, when I examined the notebooks myself, I realized that Percy did far less than a typical line editor in publishing today."

The Shelley Society was created in London in 1885 by Frederick James Furnivall. Later, branches were formed in other parts of Britain and abroad, including Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The society’s lectures, publications, and outreach efforts helped increase public interest in Shelley and influenced how English literature is studied today. The society stopped its regular activities in the early 20th century.

The Keats–Shelley Memorial Association, founded in 1903, supports the Keats–Shelley Memorial House in Rome, which is a museum and library dedicated to Romantic writers connected to Italy. The association also maintains the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley in the non-Catholic Cemetery at Testaccio. It publishes the scholarly journal Keats–Shelley Review and organizes the annual Keats–Shelley and Young Romantics Writing Prizes, as well as the Keats–Shelley Fellowship.

Selected works

Works are listed by their estimated creation year. If the year of first publication is different, it is included. The source for this information is Bieri, unless otherwise noted.

• The Cenci (estimated creation year: 1819)
• Prometheus Unbound (estimated creation year: 1820)
• Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot The Tyrant (estimated creation year: 1820)
• Charles the First (estimated creation year: 1822, unfinished)
• Hellas (estimated creation year: 1822)

• Zastrozzi (estimated creation year: 1810)
• St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian (estimated creation year: 1810, first published in 1811)

• "The Assassins, A Fragment of a Romance" (estimated creation year: 1814)
• "The Coliseum, A Fragment" (estimated creation year: 1817)
• "Una Favola (A Fable)" (estimated creation year: 1819, originally written in Italian)

• Wolfstein; or, The Mysterious Bandit (estimated creation year: 1822)
• Wolfstein, the Murderer; or, The Secrets of a Robber's Cave (estimated creation year: 1850)

• The Banquet of Plato (estimated creation year: 1818, first published in unbowdlerised form in 1931)
• Ion of Plato (estimated creation year: 1821)

• History of a Six Weeks' Tour (estimated creation year: 1817)
• Proserpine (estimated creation year: 1820)
• Midas (estimated creation year: 1820)